The Server's Down and I Feel Fine
by Nancy Kaminski
Summary: What happens when Nick can't log on to the server, and the Help Desk is Unhelpful?


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The Server's Down, and I Feel Fine  
or What Happens When Nick Can't Log On?  
  
by Nancy Kaminski   
Written while waiting for the server to come up   
(c) September 1997  
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Yesterday at work TPTB took down our server and did some emergency maintenance. It was supposed to be down for 10 minutes, but it was out of commission for 2-1/2 hours, and the manual I was writing (I'm a tech writer) was saved on the server. Urgle. I was dead in the water, bereft, and completely bored.  
  
So, instead of twiddling my thumbs, I:  
  
* Read all the magazines and trade journals in my in-box;   
* Straightened out my pencil drawer;   
* Wrote this story.   
  
The usual disclaimers about who owns whom apply. My apologies to Scott Adams for slightly mutating the slogan on an amusing Dilbert t-shirt.  
  
Permission is given to the FK Fanfic Website to archive this story. Anyone else--ask permission, or I will be forced to hunt you down and kill you.  
  
~~~~~  
  
Nick Knight stared at his monitor.  
  
The cursor blinked busily at the end of the login script in the Novell NetWare window. "Access denied. User ID unknown" were the last words (and the only ones Nick understood) in the lengthy, technobabble-filled window.  
  
"Okay, so I typed the wrong password," he muttered under his breath, as he hit the X in the upper right-hand corner of the window with his mouse pointer. "Close, dammit!"  
  
The window obstinately stayed open.  
  
Nick gave up after hammering at the X fifty times at vampire click-speed. Nothing worked---his PC, like himself, was frozen in time. The words 'Access denied' leered at him from the otherwise innocent-looking window.  
  
An intense feeling of despair engulfed him. Now even his computer was rejecting him.  
  
Nick finally just shut off the machine after all his attempts to soft reboot failed.  
  
He pressed the power switch and waited while the PC whirred, beeped, and chattered its way through its bootup routine. Suddenly there was an unfamiliar blue screen with a two-line message in unfriendly white type:  
  
"Windows was not properly shut down. One or more of your drives may have errors on it. Press any key to run ScanDisk on these drives..."  
  
With a sense of foreboding Nick pressed the Enter key gently. Maybe if he gave it some encouragement, some kind words...  
  
"C'mon," he whispered as ScanDisk fussily went over all the files on his hard drive, "Be a good little PC and let me get to my report."  
  
Just then Captain Cohen popped out of her office and gave Nick a meaningful look. "Knight!" she barked. "Where's that report? It was supposed to be on my desk an hour ago!"  
  
"In just a bit, Cap," he called. "Computer problems."  
  
"Hmph." was all she said as she disappeared into her office, not unlike a prairie dog disappearing into its burrow.  
  
Finally, the Novell NetWare Client 32 logo appeared. "Yes!" Nick exclaimed as the login window popped into existence. He typed his password (DAMND1) and pressed the Enter key.  
  
The login script scrolled in its window. "Access denied. User ID unknown."  
  
"Auughghgh!" He clicked furiously, gave the uncooperative machine the three-finger salute, and hit all the function keys, one after the other---all for naught.  
  
Power switch off. Power switch on.  
  
"Windows was not properly shut down. One or more of your drives may have errors on it. Press any key to run ScanDisk on these drives..."  
  
After four cycles of improper shutdown and ScanDisking, Nick gave up. He looked around---everybody else in the squad room was typing productively away. Why were theirs working and his wasn't? The colossal unfairness of the universe had struck yet again.  
  
He snagged Sergeant Miller as she passed within arm's reach and pointed to the 'Access denied' message glowing evilly on his monitor. "What am I supposed to do now?"  
  
She shrugged. "Didn't you read your e-mail, Nick? They took the server down at midnight for some routine maintenance. I think it was down for a half hour, but it's okay now." She noted the desperate look on his face. "Except for you, I guess." Peering closely at the message in the login window, she said, "See this? You're connected to the wrong server--this should say 'TPD1FLOOR' instead of 'TPDTEST.'" She patted him on the shoulder. "Call the Help Desk." With that sage bit of advice, she scooted out of range of any more technical questions.  
  
Nick repressed the urge to fold his keyboard in half and dialed the Help Desk, whose number was Helpfully pasted to the front of his CPU.  
  
Brnnng! Brnnng! Click. "Thank your for calling the Help Desk. For system status, press 1. To leave a message, press 2. To speak with a Help Desk coordinator, press 3." The recorded female voice was soothing, and Nick began to feel a bit better. They'd straighten things out---it was their job to Help. He pressed 3.  
  
"We're sorry, all the Help Desk coordinators are busy. Please stay on the line, and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received." The strains of 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose' orchestrated for a large number of violins filtered through the phone.  
  
Fifteen minutes and six cuts from 'The Best of the Golden Strings' later, Nick was still on hold. He knew, he just knew, that Captain Cohen was glaring at him through the glass wall of her office. He could feel her eyes burning into him even though his back was turned. He could also feel his already tenuous control steadily eroding.  
  
Damn machines! He fervently wished he were back in the Old Days, when the only thing that went wrong with the record keeping system was writer's cramp, the occasional broken quill, and myopia.  
  
Monks just didn't go down. They were slow, but they were reliable.  
  
The 'Access Denied' message had made a strangled beeping sound and grayed out five minutes earlier, leaving his mouse pointer frozen in the upper right quadrant of the screen. The phone was beginning to leave a dent in the side of his head.  
  
Nick came to a decision---it was time for Direct Action.  
  
He slammed the phone gently back in its cradle, careful not to break it, at least not too much. (He was still getting peculiar looks from the phone guy ever since he had to have a whole new receiver installed in place of the one he had tied in a knot. But that, dear Reader, is another story.)  
  
He strode purposefully out of the squad room and headed for the basement.  
  
There was a Help Desk coordinator out there who was going to Help. In person, and now.  
  
~~~~~  
  
When Nick entered the cubicized technical support ghetto---er, area---his sensitive hearing was assaulted with the sound of clicking keys and mouse buttons and conversations in an apparent foreign language with only a glancing relationship to English.  
  
There weren't many people there at this time of night, but policing was a 24-hour a day occupation and the police needed their computers, so there was a skeleton staff on hand. Nick reflected for a moment on the totally apropos nature of that expression. Someone was gonna die tonight, figuratively speaking, and it wasn't going to be him at the hands of a certain frustrated, raven-haired, be-suited captain.  
  
No, the victim had the smell of plastic pocket protector about him.  
  
Nick started hunting Help Desk Coordinator.  
  
Eight centuries of predatory skills snapped into action as he glided up and down the narrow rows of padded gray-blue cells, hunting his prey.  
  
Fortunately, the plastic signs velcroed on the outer walls of faux burlap cubecloth-covered dividers were a klew that even a distraught bloodsucking nightstalking civil servant couldn't miss. He found a six by eight-foot cell with a sign that read 'Help Desk Coordinator.'  
  
It was empty. Red lights blinked madly on the phone unit crouching next to a collection of Star Trek: the Next Generation action figures set up on the color-coordinated desktop. Nick noted in passing that the Data figure was goosing the Picard figure with a phaser.  
  
The next cube was identical, except for the decorations; the Dilbert cartoons pinned to the wall were different, and the absent person apparently favored Legos over action figures as cube decorations. This cube was empty too, and its phone was blinking madly like an out-of-control Christmas tree.  
  
The third cube, however, showed signs of life. The nameplate read 'Larry Wilgar' and helpfully identified him as belonging to that elusive genus, Help Desk Coordinator.  
  
Aha.  
  
Nick materialized silently behind the unwitting Larry, who was leaning back in his swivel-tilt chair, feet on the edge of his modular worktop, a phone headset wrapped around his ears. His eyes were closed and he was slowly spilling a Slinky back and forth between his hands.  
  
Chingggggg. Chingggggg. The Slinky slithered in a silvery cascade of industrial spring coils.  
  
"...it's plugged in?" he was saying as he juggled. "Yes, I know there are dust bunnies under your desk, but you have to be sure it's plugged in." He listened a moment. "No, I can't help with the cleaning crew. Just check the wires, okay?" The Slinky made an especially expressive slithery noise as he wobbled it to create an artistic S-curve.  
  
The chilly hand on his t-shirt-clad shoulder startled Larry into an upright position. He turned to look behind him, the Slinky sagging into long loops of metal.  
  
"I want Help." Nick's voice was soft, low-pitched, and menacing. It was the voice that had been the last thing that so many involuntary blood donors had heard in centuries past. "I---want---Help---NOW."  
  
"Hey, dude, chill out," Larry protested, completely unaware of his bon mot. He spoke into his headset. "No, not you...have you checked if the monitor's power switch is on? It's that button below the screen, to the right. There should be a little green light. Hang on..." He reached behind himself without looking and unerringly punched the Hold button. "So, dude, what's the deal?"  
  
Nick finally got a good look at his victim/savior (depending on how it all turned out), and was unable to believe this, this, ADOLESCENT could Help. Where was the cool scientist in crisp white shirt and bow tie? Where was the eccentric genius with the Einstein haircut that could pull his electronic chestnuts out of the cyberfire?  
  
Larry was nineteen---maybe. Lank brown hair, long at the top and shaved at the sides, flopped into his eyes. A black t-shirt with the logo of some repulsive grunge group hugged his scrawny chest, and his jeans had rips in the knees. An earring twinkled in his right ear.  
  
"I CAN'T LOG ON!" Nick explained, himself unaware of how desperate he sounded. "I have to finish a report for Captain Cohen, and it's on the server, and my PC won't log me on, and I need to finish it now, and it freezes up and I have to reboot by turning it off, and then I have to run ScanDisk, and..." He ran out of breath, something unusual in someone who doesn't have to breathe at all. He remembered what Sergeant Miller had told him. "It's logging me on to the wrong server." He waited expectantly for the callow youth to save his cyber bacon.  
  
"Oh. I can't help you with that."  
  
"WHAT?!?!?" Nick's hand began to creep towards the prominent Adam's apple. Just one little squeeze...  
  
"No, man, that has to be done by the guy who maintains the servers. He did an upgrade at midnight, checked it, and then went home. He's gone, man."  
  
"HOW AM I GOING TO WRITE MY REPORT?!?" Yes, he was going to give just a little squeeze, and it would feel soooo good. To hell with the guilt thing---this was provocation beyond all comprehension. No one would ever blame him. No one with an inoperative computer, that is.  
  
"He's on call, man. Let me page him. He can fix it from home." Larry started trying to edge towards his phone. "Just let go, man, and I'll get him, okay?"  
  
Nick unclenched his hand. "Call. Now."  
  
Larry settled into his chair and put his Slinky down. Once out of Nick's clammy grip, however, it seemed it was business as usual. "First, I have to finish with this lady." He punched the hold button. "Hi, sorry about that. I got another call...is it up? You find that power switch?" He listened for a minute. "Okay, so next time this happens check if it's turned on. No power, no picture, right? Okay. Bye." He rattled away on his keyboard, filling in forms and flashing past screens in true geekish fashion.  
  
"Okaaaay...Name?" He looked up when Nick remained silent. "I have to open up a job order before I can call the guy. Rules. Name?"  
  
Through gritted (though thankfully not overly long---yet) teeth, Nick answered questions. Name. Department. Location. User ID. Little green tag number on his PC ("I don't know! Who memorizes little green tag numbers when you're solving crimes!?" Larry wisely let that one go). Description of the problem. Urgency rating, on a scale of one to five.  
  
Larry's fingers flashed over the keyboard at near vampire speed. He finally hit the Enter key with a flourish and sat back. "Now I call." He picked up the receiver, only to halt in midair when Nick's hand landed heavily again on his shoulder. Larry looked around into a pair of glowing eyes.  
  
Ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-thump.  
  
Larry stared at Nick in that oh-so-satisfying deer-in-the-headlights way that, at times like this, Nick really loved to be able to do. It was almost as good as flying, only not so wearing on the hair.  
  
"You will tell the server guy that he must hurry, that this is top priority, and that it had better never happen again. Furthermore, as long as you are with the police department you will personally make sure that my computer is always in tip-top condition, always up and online and whatever else you call it, with the very latest versions of everything we have. Understand?"  
  
Larry burbled his agreement to be Nick's personal Geek.  
  
"Make the call. I will be at my desk, and I want to see my computer working in ten minutes, no longer."  
  
Larry's fingers spasmed over the phone number pad.  
  
Nick left the twitching youth confident that his computer problems, for as long as Larry lasted in the department, were over. *Maybe I should have asked for a copy of Tetris at the same time...*  
  
When he got back to the squad room he found Captain Cohen sitting on the edge of his desk, arm draped over his monitor.  
  
"Knight..."  
  
Nick cringed. Sometimes he preferred facing Lacroix in a really bad mood to Captain Amanda Cohen looking for tardy paperwork.  
  
What did that guy on the TV show use to say?  
  
"Oh, boy..."  
  
Finis  



End file.
